Top Stories

LOS ANGELES, June 21: MarVista Entertainment arrived at DISCOP this week with several deals already concluded in the region, including licensing more than a dozen movies to Zonemedia’s Zone Romantica channel in Eastern Europe. Zonemedia acquired more than a dozen …

LONDON, June 21: All3Media has expanded its portfolio of independent British production houses with the acquisition of Maverick Television. Based in Birmingham and London, the company was founded in 1993 by Jonnie Turpie. It currently has two peak time series …

LONDON, June 21: Virgin Media Television’s game-show entertainment channel Challenge has commissioned Graham Norton’s So Television to create a new clip show, entitled NortonLand. The series will showcase the best games from Graham Norton’s nightly show on Channel 4. Each …

MUMBAI, June 21: Media Content & Communications Services India (MCCS), a joint venture between Ananda Bazar Patrika Group (ABP) and the STAR Group, has announced the launch of STAR Majha (My Star), a 24-hour Indian news channel in the Marathi …

NEW YORK, June 21: Scholastic Media’s stop-motion animated preschool series Dragon will return to qubo—the children’s programming block airing on NBC, Telemundo and ION Television—for a second season of 13 new episodes, this September. Dragon made its U.S. broadcast premiere …

LOS ANGELES, June 21: This summer, The Style Network will launch Pantry Raid, a new one-hour weekly culinary series that aims to help people whip up gourmet meals from unlikely ingredients available in their kitchens. The series sees host Michael …

TORONTO, June 21: Portfolio Entertainment has received a commission from TELETOON in Canada for a fourth season of 13 episodes of the animated tween comedy Carl2 (Carl Squared). Carl2 currently airs on TELETOON in Canada, Nickelodeon in Germany, Jetix in …

LOS ANGELES, June 21: Endemol USA has partnered with Black Entertainment Television (BET) to launch a live late-night call-TV variety show, Take the Cake, on the cable network this July. The one-hour show will debut on BET on Monday, July …

MONTREAL, June 21: Canadian producer and distributor FRV Media has reached a deal to acquire Imavision, which distributes TV and DVD titles in North America and French-speaking Europe, for $26 million. The company is being acquired from 4303385 Canada inc. …

NEW YORK, June 21: VH1 has greenlit seven new series for its third night of original prime-time programming, ranging from the improv comedy Free Radio to the reality series The Salt ‘N’ Pepa Show, featuring the Grammy Award-winning female rap …